I watched this beautiful film with Richard Gere (Will Keen) and Winona Ryder (Charlotte Fielding) once again. Whether it was the autumn that influenced my subsequent reflections or simply the fact that I’ve grown older, everything in this movie seemed different to me this time.
Of course, I cried just as I did before, because it’s impossible to accept helplessness without tears—impossible to accept the fact that someone close to you is leaving, dying, even if you knew it, even if you were prepared for it, even if you never intended to spend your whole life with them.
The film’s plot is quite clichéd. At its core is the love story of a man and a woman with a significant age gap. He—Will—is a 48-year-old womanizer and restaurant owner, while she—Charlotte—is a young 23-year-old woman with no more than a year left to live. Will didn’t know about Charlotte’s illness and, at the start of their relationship, confessed that he couldn’t promise her anything, only offering what was there in the moment. That’s what he always did when starting a new relationship. How shocked he was when she smiled and admitted that she also made no demands, only able to give him what was there in the moment, as she was gravely ill and didn’t know how much time she had left.
This conversation left a much stronger impression on me this time than before. I don’t know why I didn’t feel it so acutely before—the “here and now” moment. For me, it’s about how we only have today, no, less than that—only the present moment, and nothing more. We can only give the world, ourselves, or our loved ones what we have right now. Nothing more, nothing less. And it’s so touching. It’s so much and so little at the same time. It’s all we have—right now.
This time, I discovered a deeper meaning. It was as if I were reading between the lines. The relationships in this film are like a prototype of time—the moment that cannot be stopped, frozen, planned, locked away, or kept under control. You can only live it, experience different feelings. In the “here and now” moment, life is possible, as the film’s characters repeatedly told each other. They said they had given each other a wealth of experiences filled with pain, love, bitterness, and joy. Only the understanding that everything ends can allow us to truly live—to not plan, worry about the future, or paint tragic scenarios, but simply live and cherish what is.
Will tried to hold onto the moment. He tried to do everything possible to stop time, but his attempt failed. She died. Time slipped away. Irreversibly. He knew it would happen, he knew fate couldn’t be defied, but he tried to influence what couldn’t be changed. It was a cry of despair. He tried once more to convince himself that time cannot be stopped. He had to accept it. Accept it and continue living.
And life did continue—through the birth of his granddaughter. How symbolic the intertwining of two energies—the energy of life and the energy of death. The energy of an end and the energy of a beginning.
For me, this is about time. Something ends—something must die, but undoubtedly, in this end, there will be a beginning—a start of something new. After all, life goes on.
